Cigarettes and Sunshine
by flecksofpoppy
Summary: After a streak of writing a lot of dark fics, this came out of nowhere. It is, dare I say, lighthearted. Reno and Rude have a conversation directly following the end of Advent Children when they get back to Healen. Reno/Rude.


So since I've been writing lots of DARK DEPRESSING STUFF lately, the urge struck me to do something a little lighter. A few people on my f-list are doing the summer Advent Challenge; I don't think I have it in me to do something like that (too much pressure), but all this talk of summer and fics centered around summer got me to thinking. Of course you can spin anything as dark or depressing, but for me, summer conjures images of laziness, heat, and waffy things like ice cream and beaches. Sooo...this came out of nowhere. It's Reno/Rude and it's not dark. It has lots of dialogue and humor...I'm blaming this on deadcell (a good thing in my book), who I also must thank for reading this, providing feedback, and for this title. I dare say...it might actually be _lighthearted_. Sorry for a few fanon cliches-I don't think they're that egregious, and I was having too much fun writing this to care. ^_^

This is supposed to take place the same day Advent Children ends, literally right after the end of the movie. I'm just going to say it's summer when Kadaj shows up-hey, why not-and this is the conversation Reno and Rude have when they get back to Healen.

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><p><strong>Cigarettes and Sunshine<strong>

Reno sat down on edge of the bed where Rude was lying. They were both exhausted.

"What a fuckin' day, huh?" he said, running his hand through his hair. Rude shifted on the mattress and rolled onto his side to look at Reno.

"Yeah," he agreed, taking off his sunglasses and putting them on the table next to the bed. "But a good one, all in all."

"Yeah," Reno agreed, nodding his head, the abrasions on his face still stinging. "I think Tseng's already making calls to Reeve."

Rude shifted onto his back, looking at the ceiling. Through the window, he could see a low hanging summer sun peaking through the clouds; it had stopped raining an hour before. Tseng was still with Rufus.

"Guess this means we're gonna get out of here pretty soon, right?" Reno commented, his expression thoughtful. "Maybe I'll even have my own place again, huh?"

Rude laughed a little, low and deep in his throat; the familiar sound made Reno grin.

"Not that it hasn't been just...a joy," he drawled, laughing a little himself, "rooming with _you_partner."

Rude rolled his eyes good naturedly, an action he would probably only make in Reno's presence. "Won't have to clean up after you anymore."

"Hah, yeah right," Reno retorted immediately. "Being around you all the time is like having a wife."

"I'm not the bitchy one," Rude pointed out objectively, waiting for Reno to smack him.

"Bitchy? Are you fuckin' serious? You're the one who's been trying to get me to fold my clothes for the better half of a year," Reno looked at him with an expression of mock outrage.

"Well, if you'd just keep your damn piles to your side of the room, I wouldn't care."

"Yeah, well..." Reno went to point out that he was, indeed, adhering to this rule, until his feet hit a pair of his own balled up pants and a stray shoe next to Rude's bed. "Alright, fine, whatever."

"Never thought I'd see the day when the lap of luxury would be having your own place," Rude said in a more serious tone of voice. "Would of never thought it, back then..."

Reno sighed lightly. "Yeah," he agreed, "but what's done is done." He paused for a moment, drumming his fingers on a knee. "What do you think is going to happen now?"

"Don't know," Rude replied, "guess the President is going to figure that out."

Reno nodded. "You think we're going to be...you know...the good guys now?"

That got an outright laugh out of Rude and he finally turned his eyes to meet Reno's from where he had been staring absentmindedly into space. "You serious?"

"Yeah!" Reno exclaimed. "Rescuin' kids and fucking...fucking...you know...fighting evil."

"Reno," Rude said patiently, but there was still laughter lurking in his voice, "this isn't a comic book."

"Yeah, well," Reno said, crossing his arms indignantly, "tell that to Strife."

"Ohh," Rude said, shrugging, "the 'heroes of the world.' Hey, they saved our asses too."

Reno's expression sobered, and he shot a pointed, surprised look at Rude. "What? You on their side now? You fuckin' serious?" The beginnings of a rant were sprouting, but Rude could tell Reno was nervous, a waver in his voice; if he couldn't depend on Rude, who in the hell could he depend on?

"Not quite," Rude replied. "Just don't want the world...you know...exploding."

That seemed to settle Reno a little. "Yeah well, who the fuck wants that?"

"Sephiroth," Rude said.

"Well, that's not our fucking-" Rude raised an eyebrow, and Reno finished lamely, "-fault." Reno scowled at his partner. "Okay, fair point."

"Doesn't mean we're crimefighters, Reno. We work for Shinra, and it's up to the President what that means. We had our chance to leave, and none of us did."

"Yeah, yeah," Reno replied, finally settling down, the tension in his shoulders easing.

"You a Turk, Reno?"

"Of course I'm a fucking Turk," Reno bristled, but he knew where Rude was going.

"So am I, and that's never going to change. Unless the world explodes."

Reno pondered that one for a moment, and finally agreed. "Yeah, that's true." The world exploding seemed to be bad enough, but not being a Turk somehow seemed worse.

Rude could see a reflective expression come over Reno's face; he had known the other man long enough to see when he was about to ask something that required a well-crafted, carefully chosen answer.

"What would you do..." Reno hesitated, but then spit it out anyway, "if you weren't a Turk?"

"Never thought about it," Rude replied immediately. For once, it was an easy answer. "What would _you_do?" Rude retorted.

Reno had, at some point, obviously thought about it. "I...don't know."

"When Rufus asked us what we were going to do after Meteor," Rude began patiently, curious, "did you _think_, before saying you were going to stay?"

"No," Reno said. "I just...you know...what if Shinra really had been destroyed? What if Rufus had died..." He paused, but then continued. "We thought Tseng was dead. And we couldn't even find Elena for a few days..."

He hesitated, then finally said, "And what if you had died?" There was an edge to his voice. "What if-"

"I didn't," Rude interrupted, brushing it off easily. Sometimes Reno brought up topics that caused undue anxiety. Unlike most people, Rude knew that Reno thought a lot more than he was given credit for and turned things over in his head more than necessary; certainly more than Rude cared to.

Rude liked factual things-physical, defined and able to be proven by measured means. Reno's world of imaginary "what if" scenarios was not one with which he liked to become involved, though he inevitably did.

"You think too much," he added, echoing his thoughts.

Reno didn't seem to be deterred. "Well, you know, it's not like I'd go and kill myself."

Which meant that Reno had probably considered exactly that at some point, as an Option Z, though Rude doubted he'd ever take that path. Reno would rather let the world burn and take him with it than put a bullet through his head.

"I mean...you know...it would just..." he struggled for words. "If you all- if you... were gone." He snorted self-deprecatingly. "Not like I have many other skills besides beating people to death, anyway."

He cracked his knuckles self-consciously and edged further away from Rude toward the foot of the bed. "Fuckers in Edge would probably stone me to death, anyway," he concluded, shrugging.

"You'd get by," Rude offered, and Reno looked at him, surprised. Rude didn't usually offer up conjecture.

"Maybe," he said carefully. "Maybe not."

"You could be Strife's delivery assistant."

That did get a laugh out of Reno and his face lightened. "Over my dead fuckin' body. Literally."

"You think you'd get by?" Reno continued, looking at Rude. He shrugged off his jacket, fishing around first for his cigarettes, and then dropped it onto the floor neatly on top of his other pile of clothing.

"I think so," Rude said. "Probably would go back to bouncing."

As Rude made the statement, it occurred to him that it was the most surreal thing he had ever heard himself say. He blinked for a moment, watching dazedly as Reno lit up his cigarette and took a drag, saw the way he held it between his thumb and forefingers, smelled the familiar brand of clove tobacco.

"Seriously?" was Reno's response.

"Seriously," Rude said, not knowing what else to suggest as an alternate career for himself in Reno's (thankfully) fictional scenario. "Probably end up bouncing for Lockheart and her damn bar."

When Reno looked at him with widened eyes, Rude just shrugged. "Got nothing against them now. They have more against us." Rude was possibly the only person that Reno knew who could deliver a statement like that and have it be completely nonjudgmental.

"From Turk to bouncer. What a world," Reno finally replied, shaking his head and frowning, inhaling deeply and then stretching over to flick the tip of his cigarette into the ashtray on the bedside table. It was placed there solely for Reno's benefit since Rude didn't smoke regularly, and Reno had made it his habit to sit on or near Rude's bed while they talked. This may have been because Reno's bed was difficult to find, as he often appeared to be building a nest made of blue jackets, pants and white shirts.

"It's real fuckin' hot outside," he said, abruptly changing the subject. "And all those god damn bugs are humming out there."

Although Rude was more used to bugs than Reno, he agreed. They sounded loud and strange, especially after living in Midgar for so many years.

"Ain't you from somewhere in the sticks?" Reno suddenly asked, looking at Rude inquisitively.

"Was. Once upon a time," Rude said easily, although he didn't like talking about his life before Midgar. "Lots of sky. Maybe a little too much."

Reno made a face. "There's too much sky here. Never thought I'd say it, but I miss the smell of cold metal and greasy trains."

He leaned over to ash again and then stopped mid-way as he noticed the look Rude had on his face. Rude had never liked talking about the distant past. "Hey," Reno said, his voice a little softer, "you want some?"

"Yeah," Rude replied simply, and accepted the cigarette from Reno. He inhaled and then let the smoke drift lazily in slow streams out of his mouth and nose.

"Finish it," Reno said.

"Isn't that your last one?"

Reno just shrugged. "Yeah, but whatever."

Rude didn't press the issue and finished the cigarette. He felt like Reno was filling his lungs-that strangely sweet clove tobacco he smoked, something he'd smoked ever since they'd first met. What was even stranger was that it was somehow still being sold.

"You ever think about changing your brand?" Rude asked suddenly.

"Nope," Reno replied, his blue eyes darkening a little for reasons Rude couldn't deduce. "I like this brand."

"What if it didn't exist anymore?" He didn't know why he was following in Reno's line of questioning, but he was, and when Rude had an impulse he usually followed it.

"Well, it _does_," Reno persisted, folding his arms across his chest.

"But what if it didn't?"

"What if you had fucking died?" Reno blurted out abruptly, then snapped his mouth shut. They just stared at each other for a minute that seemed much longer than it actually was.

And then Rude's hand was fisted in the front of Reno's shirt and he was pulling him down, smelling the same smoke that was running through his own throat, that taste.

Reno wasn't sure whether Rude was going to kill him or kiss him; he did neither as Reno let himself be pulled down to lie on his side, facing Rude, their bodies inches apart, the scent of sweet smoke clinging to both of them.

"I didn't fucking die," Rude said roughly, "and I'm not going to."

And then Reno kissed him, leaning forward and pressing his lips to Rude's, regretting it before they even touched. They pulled away from each other at the same time, Rude with a surprised sound and wide eyes, and Reno like he had been burned.

"What the fuck was that?" Reno whispered, his entire body as stiff as a board.

Rude took a sharp breath and found his voice. "What the fuck _was_that?" he echoed Reno, and they just stared at each other.

"You kissed me." The statement hung in the air, not accusatory, just Rude stating a simple fact. "You...kissed me," he repeated, a stupefied look on his face.

Reno didn't know whether to apologize, flee, or kiss him again. The last thought, and the way his body was reacting, didn't help matters.

"I...I guess I need to get laid more," Reno tried his damnednest to brush it off with a weak laugh and shifted his eyes down, his pale skin slightly flushed. Rude didn't say anything for a moment, and then felt something very fragile hanging there between them, like catching the faintest scent of fresh rain in a breeze and then having a desert rise up all around you again.

When Reno finally looked up, Rude had his eyes closed, and then had no words as his partner moaned low in his throat and shifted closer. "Reno," he said softly, breathing against Reno's neck.

"Yeah?" he replied nervously, fidgeting with the edge of a clean sheet. But when someone said his name like that, Reno knew very well that it wasn't the beginning of a statement or a question.

Rude slowly lifted his arm and tentatively wrapped it around Reno; when there was no resistance, he pulled him closer.

Reno's breath hitched when Rude's lips met his neck, kissing slowly up his jaw, and then found his lips again. His hand tightened against Reno's back, and finally Reno opened his mouth and moaned, his hips pushing forward of their own accord. He suddenly didn't care about holding back when he felt Rude's tongue in his mouth, tasted himself and his own cigarettes, his past, his present.

Feeling brave, he pushed his hand inside of the jacket that Rude still wore and explored his back through the thin shirt, broad and well-muscled and strong, could feel his shoulders flex as he responded to Reno's touch.

Rude broke the kiss and pulled Reno's body flush up against his own. When his hands landed on Reno's ass, Reno shuddered and shook his head. "Stop," he whispered. "What the fuck is this?"

Rude stopped but didn't move his hands. "This is me, not dying," he replied, sliding one hand up underneath of Reno's shirt to touch his skin. Rude's fingers ran along his spine and then splayed across Reno's shoulderblades, much more gently than Reno would have ever thought Rude's hands could be.

And then Rude very intentionally shifted his hips forward against Reno's, and Reno could feel his hard cock, the tension in his body, the heavy breath he was trying to control. Rude wanted him like _this_, and even seemed confident in his decision. Reno was still trying to figure out why he had kissed his partner in the first place, and-

"Stop thinking," Rude's voice cut into his thoughts. "Stop with the 'what-ifs' and the 'why this'. Does this feel good?"

Reno hesitated; he shut his mind out and felt Rude's hands against his back. "Yes," he finally said. It was like opening a floodgate, one that he might have not even known he was holding back.

Reno rolled his hips forward and rubbed his own hard cock against Rude's. "Fuck," he hissed, shaking his head, "fuck." Rude moaned again and flattened his palm against Reno's back as the other hand jerked Reno's body against him more firmly.

Reno let out a low, needy sound, and he fumbled to get Rude's shirt unbuttoned, his fingers tripping over each one, but Rude just tipped his head back patiently and waited, slowing the movements of their hips against each other.

"Never done this with...uh..." Reno started nervously. It was one of the few times Rude had ever heard Reno sound self-conscious.

"A guy?" Rude finished for him. But he didn't say anything else, and Reno was surprised enough to look up at him with a question in his eyes. "Once or twice," was Rude's simple answer, but it opened a world of revelation to Reno.

On the other hand, Reno thought to himself, he was the one that had just kissed Rude; not the other way around.

Then Reno was distracted by his own shirt being unbuttoned (less of an ordeal, since he generally only had about four fastened to begin with), and Rude's hands all over him, pinching him in places he had never thought to touch or that would feel good, smoothing over his ribs down to his hipbones, more kisses across his collarbone. Touches that shot straight to Reno's cock and made him moan and mumble things he couldn't remember moments after he said them, half of it gibberish made up of noises in his throat and Rude's name.

He couldn't help but figure that this was why Rude consistently had women interested in him, the way he seemed to hook them once they were around. Of course, that had never ended well.

And the way that Rude had no doubts as he touched, just closed his eyes and seemed to be content listening to the sounds Reno was making, pausing in the places that made him moan the loudest, sucking harder when Reno would inhale sharply and arch his back.

"Gonna take your pants off," Rude said quietly. "Yeah?"

"Yeah," Reno sighed, then added, "But you have to take your fucking shirt off." Equal ground-you could never have enough of it, Reno figured.

Rude laughed a little as he sat up to shrug his jacket and shirt off, and to Reno's amusement, throw them into the pile on the floor. Then Reno could feel eyes roving over his body as Rude pushed the shirt off of his shoulder, smoothed his hand down to Reno's waist and laid back down as he started to unzip his pants.

"Shit," Reno said, his voice shaky. "You really want to...you..."

Rude just pushed Reno's pants down around his thighs as far as he could reach.

"You look good, Reno," he said softly, staring down at Reno's stiff cock. Then he wrapped his hand around him and slowly started to stroke, giving Reno time to protest. But Reno didn't say anything else; just arched his back and let out a sharp, surprised cry, parted his legs slightly and pumped his hips.

"Rude," he groaned, his eyes screwed shut tightly as he took staggered, shallow breaths.

Rude suddenly stopped and Reno's eyes flew open; then he was being turned around, forced onto his side with his back to Rude's chest. There was an arm around him, pulling him close, as the other hand snaked around to start stroking again, and Rude pushed his hips against Reno's ass so that they were moving together.

"_Ah_-fuck Rude-_oh fuck,_I'm gonna..."

Rude just growled and gave Reno's cock two more hard jerks, and then Reno's entire body tensed and he came over Rude's hand, over the clean sheets that weren't his own. He slumped, breathing hard, could feel Rude somewhere in the blindness of orgasm kissing the back of his neck.

Finally, he opened his eyes; Rude's hand was on his hip, sticky, but unmoving. He could feel his face flush again. "Sorry, I..."

"It's okay," Rude replied immediately. "I wanted you to."

Reno didn't know what else to say, and he shifted uncomfortably. "Do you want me to, uh-"

"Not right now," Rude said, "that can wait."

Reno didn't know whether he should move away, clean himself up and pretend like it never happened, or give into the urge to just lean back against Rude and fall asleep after having one of the most intense handjobs of his life.

As he was debating, Rude smoothed the hair away from his forehead and reached over him to open the drawer to the bedside table. He pulled out a familiar box and Reno looked over in surprise.

"You want a cigarette, partner? I have a feeling they're going to be making these for a long time."

Rude pulled a cigarette out of the pack and put it between Reno's lips; there was the flick of a lighter, then the sweet smell of familiarity as Reno inhaled slowly, tasting. He pulled it away from his mouth and let the cigarette dangle lazily between his fingers.

"Yeah," he agreed, exhaling and finally relaxing against Rude. "I think you're right."


End file.
